OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world. OpenDOAR staff harvest and assign metadata to allow categorisation and analysis to assist the wider use and exploitation of repositories. Each of the repositories has been visited by OpenDOAR staff to ensure a high degree of quality and consistency in the information provided: OpenDOAR is maintained by SHERPA Services, based at the Centre for Research Communications at the University of Nottingham.

By 2003, a multiplicity of Open Access research archives had grown up around the world, mushrooming in response to calls by scholars, researchers and open access advocates to provide open access to research information. There were then a number of different lists of repositories and open access archives, but no single comprehensive or authoritative list which recorded the range of academic open access repositories.

Beyond these basic listings there was a need to move from cumulative lists to a more structured information service, cataloguing and describing repositories. Users need to know the scope and comprehensiveness of the information they find and be given features which facilitate the use of that information. For example, features to search, filter, analyse and query the descriptions of each repository.

Repositories need to be categorised with clear information on their policies regarding tagging peer-reviewed/non-peer-reviewed material, their subject coverage, the constituency they draw on for content, their collection and preservation policies, etc. Where this information does not exist, repositories should be encouraged to provide it as a means to further improve their visibility and the use of the content that they hold.

Therefore there was a need for a dependable listing of the academic e-print research repositories that were available world-wide, to underpin the outreach of the Open Access movement. OpenDOAR was been set up to provide this service and has grown consistently since then.

The Health Well Repository is a member of the OpenDOAR project.

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The repository is part of the the Public Health Well website which provides access to a broader collection of health information resources from our partner websites.

The Public Health Well website also includes online interactive tools to enable you to better understanding information and supported websites and webgroups to facilitate online collaboration.